BRUSSELS — Those who oppose Western rapprochement with Kazakhstan cite the country's lack of political and human rights. But, while Kazakhstan has not gone down the "color revolution" route to democracy that other post-Soviet republics like Ukraine and Georgia have followed, its timidity about reform does not justify isolation.
After all, the West is not deterred in the slightest from dealing with authoritarian Russia and communist China.
Moreover, Kazakhstan, though a Muslim-majority country, has established the type of secular, multiethnic, and multireligious polity that the West is seeking to encourage throughout the Muslim world.